


Cat Nap

by DeathDirt



Category: overwatch
Genre: Early Morning Wakeups, Fluff, M/M, PTSD, Sleep, Waking up to bad country music, excessive cat similes, it is in this fic, ptsd mention, this is so painfully average, what that’s a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 14:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14058711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathDirt/pseuds/DeathDirt
Summary: “You’re just a salty old cat.”“Fuck yeah I am.” Gabe licked Lúcio’s cheek and did his best imitation of a purr. “Salty old cat with my sweet littleranito.”





	Cat Nap

**Author's Note:**

> It’s fluffy, it’s average, and there’s way too many cat similes. This pairing deserves so much better but GDI where I are the ideas when you need ‘em
> 
> Edited as of 4/22! Mostly dialogue fixes, but some extra bits added and taken out as well.

Dead men are hard to wake. Especially when they are as big and heavy as Gabriel Reyes. 

Lúcio wonders why he let Gabe lay on top of him last night. He’d probably had some kind of anxiety attack again, Lúcio thought sadly. Poor guy was just way too fucked up. He’s not been open about it, though Lúcio certainly didn’t ask or expect him to be. Angela had tried explaining it to the young man once, but the most he could really gain out of it was that Gabe had quite literally died and come back to life, which was a revelation in and of itself. 

When he first saw Reaper on the battlefield, he assumed it was just some guy who liked to have his own ego stroked in a costume. Something like the self-righteous Vishkar, strutting around in their high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou appearance while still trying to force thousands of people into homelessness when they struggled to survive as it was. ...Even if Reaper was a little less than pristine and white like the Vishkar.

But Gabe was just a man, just like everyone else. He’d died and then he’d come back. It was unnatural; once you died, you deserved whatever peace it afforded. Being revived like a sci-fi zombie? If that didn’t traumatize someone - even if that someone was the most badass man alive (to Lúcio) - then what would? No matter how tough he tried to say he was or act, Gabe needed just as much love as anyone else. It took time, of course. Nobody’s going to shoot at a guy with their giant and extremely deadly shotguns and then cuddle and spill their guts on lifelong trauma in a split second. It started as simple visits from the mercenary on the battlefield. They would banter, bicker, talk, then go on their separate ways. Eventually, it became ‘kidnappings’, when Reaper would take Lúcio ‘hostage’ until such time as he felt like letting him go. After that, it turned into visits at out-of-the-way bars and hotels, then to house calls in the middle of the night while Lúcio was on a tour. Then Lúcio got to know the man behind the mask. And with all of this, the image was slowly, irreversibly changed. 

Instead of the idiot in a bird mask working for Talon, he turned into… Gabriel. A beautiful man, broken to pieces, and haphazardly glued back together for someone else’s sake. He’d learned through trial and error, and a few unfortunate broken hotel properties, that Gabe had moments where he needed silence and a warm body. So, needless to say, Lúcio didn’t really like to bug him when he got upset. 

That being said, it wasn’t exactly easy to explain - should someone walk in - why the most feared terrorist in the world was using Lúcio as a freaking teddy bear. If it didn’t get him put on an international watchlist, he’d be lucky. Much as he hated to, the DJ was going to have to wake up the big cuddly bad guy. 

First he tried to nudge him awake, prodding the big man gently. First on his shoulder, then his cheek, his giant bicep, places where he didn’t mind being touched. Maybe if it was slow, gentle, he could prevent any kind of bodily injury. It wouldn’t be the first time Lúcio moved a bit too quick and got some mysterious scratches for it. But poking him only seemed to make Gabe shift and wrap one of his bulky arms tighter around Lúcio’s torso. The move had Lúcio’s arm pinned to his side. The younger man huffed.

Well then. This was great. Down one arm, can’t even lift his own body up now because of the big guy, and someone was probably going to come down to wake him up soon. It was one of the few nights Lúcio had decided to stay in a hotel instead of one of the bases Winston had given him a list of, which meant that anyone could walk into the room at any time to see one of the biggest celebrity names in the world sleeping with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. It was time to step up his game. Next, of course, Lúcio started to lightly pinch in the spots he knew where Gabe was ticklish; the man could deny it all he wanted, but Lúcio knew exactly where to touch to make him giggle like a school girl. Mostly on his flanks, but there were a few spots on his upper thigh close to his hip that drove him absolutely mad. It may have earned him a few dirty glares when they decided to have sex, but Lúcio wasn’t about to complain.

The DJ fluttered his fingertips along Gabe’s side, moving up and down his side to get the maximum effect. If he were awake, Gabriel would have probably been glaring daggers, just wishing he could inflict some kind of swift and unholy retribution upon his lover. 

That, however, didn’t work either… Gabe grumbled in his sleep, shifted again, further down, but now out of reach for any further pinching or tickling. Lúcio sighed out loud. He really did not feel up to dealing with a huge news scandal that actually had proof to back it up for once. Bad enough when they were groundless, petty jabs at his dignity. If any kind of gossiper or journalist got wind of this… At the very least, Overwatch would kick him out and he’d lose ninety percent of the power behind the movement he’d been building for so long. And that was if Talon didn’t try to send more people to kill him first. Not to mention the fact that he’d probably be stuck in a psych ward for dating a dead man.

So Lúcio knew exactly what he had to do. And he couldn’t say that he wasn’t looking forward to it. The tiny precaution Gabriel had always insisted on was that Lúcio have his sonic amplifier nearby. He said it was so he could cover his tracks if he ever scratched Lúcio with the wicked claws on his gloves, but that was Tough Gabe speak for ‘I don’t want to hurt you on accident’. The amplifier could play whatever was plugged into it. Which meant…

Lúcio sighed again, head shaking with a fond smile. He tugged open the drawer of his bedside table and dug around in it before finding what he was after. It was a really old CD, one that McCree had given him when he signed on with Overwatch. It was obviously meant as a joke, and Lúcio could appreciate that. What he should have been thankful for was its effect on Gabe. He’d been listening to it the night before, and apparently he forgot he had put it in his stereo system - he’d been tired, alright? - then turned it on during one of Gabe’s first visits. The masked terrorist had nearly clawed the DJ’s eyes out after he shut it off, dying of laughter because of just how extreme Gabriel had reacted.

Country music drove Gabe absolutely insane. And this particular brand of country was, directly quoted from Gabe, “a goddamn abomination to the very idea of music in every sense, meaning, and conception”. With some cuss words and Spanish mutterings left out. 

The little bedside player clicked as the CD was pulled in. The first thrums of an acoustic guitar started to bump out from the sonic amp. Gabe burrowed his head a little further into Lúcio’s stomach like he knew exactly what was coming. Lúcio rolled his eyes at Gabe’s royal kitty attitude, persisting even in his sleep. After a few moments of nothing but the gentle thrum of guitar, the music began to build, turning into a much more wild explosion of sound. Wherever McCree got his music tastes, it certainly wasn’t from anyone outside the state of Texas. Lúcio had been there a whole one time because of a flight delay and he found that a lot of the people were almost ridiculously similar to McCree.

As soon as the easy guitar turned into the heavy rumble of a whole band, Gabe’s body shot up like a bolt, scrabbling to find the source to do away with it. Lúcio figured he’d have mercy on the poor wraith, and flipped the speaker off at the inaudible pleas. “Thank fuck,” Gabriel groaned. He flopped back over Lúcio, hugging tightly to the young man’s waist. Lúcio moved to lean up against the bed’s headboard, scratching the top of Gabriel’s head while he greeted, “Morning, hot stuff.” The dead man grunted in response. Better than some days. 

“Like your new alarm clock?” Gabe shot him a look that promised murder if he suggested that again. “You better fucking not,” he threatened, burying his face into his boyfriend’s beautiful abs.

“If I gotta do it, man, I gotta do it. I woke up like...an hour ago. Don’t really need someone walkin’ in to see a big, old, dead black cat on my chest.” Gabe grumbled at the nickname. He wasn’t sure when Lúcio had come up with it, but he loved to call the most feared terrorist on planet Earth things that went along the same vein as ‘kitty’. On good days, he’d play along, rub all over Lúcio and take up way more space than he needed to. On others, he’d snap and hiss, unintentionally acting like a mean feral cat anyway.

Today was somewhere in the middle. Gabe had been on his way to see Lúcio, simply because he was close by, and then of course ‘76 - fucking Morrison - had to be in the same place at the same time. Probably on purpose, since Lúcio was just staying in a run-of-the-mill five-star hotel without any hardcore security. It didn’t make the encounter any less horrific. Some jabs of ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ on Jack’s end and then returns of ‘son of a bitch’ and ‘traitor scum’ and ‘white boy trash’ on Gabriel’s. And then some evil god seemed to deem it necessary to flip whatever switch was broken in Gabe’s head and all he could see was the flaming ruins of Zurich HQ. So to say that he was upset when he flooded through the cracked door as smoke was just a bit of an understatement. As a result, Lúcio was quiet, didn’t say much, just sat in his bed with the masked Reaper until he was ok to be Gabe for the night. 

Going to sleep, he was still suffering from what were basically aftershocks of his panic, on top of the disgusting words he and the soldier had thrown at each other. ...They weren’t really as nice as just ‘whore’ or just ‘white boy trash’. But waking up was a pleasant feeling when he spent the night with the Brazilian DJ celebrity. Even if he was ‘woken’ with bullshit country music he knew could only come from the cowboy-wonder.

What Lúcio seemed to never realize no matter how long they’d been together was that Gabe always woke before he did. It didn’t matter if Lúcio had to be awake by four in the morning, Gabriel would be alert and awake a moment sooner, just from how sensitive his senses were coupled with the fact that he still lived in a constant surveillance mode. Which was never a bad thing. No, even in those ugly sleeping stages - the kind when your mouth hangs open, drool dribbles out of your mouth, your face is marked up from pressing too hard into the pillow case - Lúcio was probably the prettiest man alive. Gabe would watch him for hours at a time, just carefully looking over each little detail, each contour of his body. As far as he was concerned this extreme office romance was temporary, at best - they were still fighting on two sides of the same war, after all.

“Nobody’s going to walk in,” Gabe grumbles, arching his back until the ache subsided a bit. His whole body was in a constant state of pain, but sometimes stretching made it easier. “Dude,” Lúcio started, rubbing a hand along Gabe’s shoulder, “My crew has a copy of my door key. Specifically my makeup guy, but that’s still one more person that shouldn’t see you. And uh…” Lúcio coughs in an obviously conspicuous manner. “76 is probably gonna come in before anyone else, too. Don’t wanna see you two get into it.” That’s what it was. Of… Of fucking course Jack was going to be barging in here any second to end what little peace he could afford. Gabriel’s mood goes straight south, and it shows clearly. His brow furrows and the corners of his mouth turn down in an almost-pout. The DJ puts both hands on Gabe’s cheeks, scratching through his beard in what he hopes is a soothing gesture. “Don’t worry about it. I-If you wanna stay, stay, and I’ll deal with sour puss,” Lúcio stutters, pulling his knees up to curl them around Gabe’s waist, “And I’ll make sure Jamie or Hog get on guard duty next time.” 

Gabe grunts as he pushes himself up. He’s not wearing a shirt, but for some godforsaken reason, he forgot to take anything off below the waist except his boots, and he groans. The whole getup is really hard to take care of, being nothing but solid black leather and some metal pieces. He glares at Lúcio, as if the mindlessness is his fault. The young man shrugs. “I woulda told you, but you were pretty wrecked when you came in, man. I’ll talk to 76, maybe-”

“Don’t bother,” Gabriel growls, settling back on his elbows. “You won’t change anything. He’s a goddamn asshole and he’ll never be anything less.” Lúcio doesn’t like that response but refrains from saying so. There’s nothing quite like an upset Gabriel Reyes to make a day go downhill. He was so great when he was happy, enough to outweigh the days he got angry or depressed, but it made Lúcio wish he could do more to _make_ him happy. “If you say so. But for real, I’ll just get Jamie and Hog to be my night guard next time. They don’t have as big a deal with anyone other than the omnics,” he promises, giving the dead cat an affectionate squeeze with his legs. Gabe snorts, smiling with an unusually tender expression. “What do you mean guard? They’ll fuck all night in the alley.”

“See? You already got something in common with them.” Gabriel laughs outright this time. He pulls back, out of his boyfriend’s imprisoning embrace, then settles in the bed, laying alongside Lúcio with an arm slung over the smaller man’s chest to drag him back down. It’s not like Gabe’s ever been small, but he couldn’t remember the last time he was this much bigger than his partner. A nice change, in his own opinion. Instead of feeling like some kind of monstrous creature - which Gabriel really knew he was, to his own dismay and Lúcio’s - Gabe felt like a protector of sorts. Like Lúcio was a little prince, and Gabriel his mighty dragon. Or hell, he’s perfectly fine with being a cat.

A hand comes up to run through Gabe’s hair, fingers carding gently through the thick curls that ran all the way to his shoulders. “Y’know, when you first took the hood off,” Lúcio starts suddenly in a wave of comforting nostalgia, “I didn’t think you’d be a long hair kinda guy. Figured it’d be short, maybe shaved all the way down, military style. Think anyone would recognize you if you came to one of my shows?” Gabe thinks about it. A benefit of the nanites was that he could change some parts of himself. One thing that he could easily change was his voice. The nanites fucked with his vocal cords anyway so there was no way anyone would recognize his voice. Maybe some sunglasses to hide the fact that his eyes were an unnerving red surrounded by black sclera. “Don’t think so. But that depends on who’s there.” Gabe keeps it vague; he doesn’t want to make a promise he can’t keep, but he also doesn’t want to completely destroy any hope of being at one of those legendary concerts.

“You oughta come to one. Long as you don’t kill too many people,” the younger man jokes, grinning when Gabe lightly shoves him. “I could probably get you a VIP pass or staff badge maybe, and just tell the guys that you’re someone I’ve been seein’. Would you be interested in-” 

“Are you kidding? Of course I’d be interested.” Lúcio chuckles. _Of course_ Gabe would be. “You got it, kitty. Now come on, we gotta get your stuff so the next headline isn’t ‘Celebrity Musician Has Secret Romance with Terrorist’.” Gabe groans and rolls his eyes. “You’re giving those things too much credit. It’d probably be more like ‘DJ Fucks Mercenary’.” 

“You’re just a salty old cat.”

“Fuck yeah I am.” Gabe licked Lúcio’s cheek and did his best imitation of a purr. “Salty old cat with my sweet little _ranito_.”


End file.
